iPod Jr. Rumors Become More Substantial

sdimbert writes "Rumors of a new, smaller, "iPodJr" have been floating around the Rumor Sites for a few weeks (as well a here at Slashdot). But now, the rumors have gained credibility and become more substantial. London's Evening Standard reports today (30 Dec 03) that "Apple has announced a cut-price mini version" of the iPod, "costing 65 [~115 USD], which will be able to store 800 songs." Despite the assertion that Apple "announced" the product, there is no mention of it at their official News Page or their product page for the iPod."

Mini Me?

[XxtraLarGe]

I'm sure Apple will tap Vern Troyer to promote the new mini iPod :-)

Now it is a matter of time...

[Guano_Jim]

Before Jobs the iWhite sends out his Uruk-Hai to crush the rumor sites.

It's kind of... a bummer

[Muddie]

I went to update the firmware on my iPod, and... like, it went all 'beep-beep-beep-beep-beep' and started to smoke. That was kind of... a bummer. So I check my funds and realize that I don't have the cash to get a new one because I bought my week's worth of... herbs. So, I go to the store and see that they released this iPodJr, and I was all like... cool. So, I was able to still listen to Jerry while I was studying. That's like... cool.

I'm Ellen Feiss, and I have an iPodJr.

Also announced...

[Mr. Darl McBride]

I was more intrigued by the announcement of the "iPod Micro," which supposedly makes even -more- music available than the regular iPods. It's also got some kind of wireless technology built in, which is something that people have been speculating about forever. What's odd though is that it's not 802.11b/g or Bluetooth, but rather something called "frequency modulation" in an entirely different spectrum.

They said the memory technology was called "station presets" -- anyone know what this means?

Re:Press Release

[ankit]

Its a cycle!

It all started with thinksecret posting about the rumored mini-ipods. Then came macrumors, which simply linked to thinksecret as their source. Then it was slashdot, which again linked to thinksecret. Then it was macrumors again, which said that it had more sources (they did not disclose them). And then some London newspapers picked up the rumors, and posted them as such. This becomes news on macrumors.com again (see page 2). And now we are back on slasldot.

wow! And it all started with _someone_ hinting a possibility to thinksecret!

This reminds me of a time when it was rumored that the President of India had died. Everyone was thoroughly convinced. Even BBC carried this story. The poor president was completely healthy and very much alive!

Re:Ogg Vorbis support

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure that Apple will miss the business of you and the five other people that aren't buying an iPod for this reason.

Re:Ogg Vorbis support

[Anonymous Coward]

I have encoded my entire collection of CDs in ogg by choice and have been waiting until good hardware players for ogg were available before I purchased one.

Sounds like you're an idiot. Enjoy your wait.

Re:Mini Me?

[Genady]

NO NO NO! Billy Boyd! Apple has to redeam the Pippin name in it's lineage. "The new iPod, hobbit sized." :: Cut to scene with Pip and Merry ::

Pip> Whatcha got there Merry?
Merry> The new MiniPod, 800 songs and it's mine, my prescious.
Pip> :: Sees a human pass with a regular iPod :: Wait. It comes in Pints? I'm getting one.

Re:We all know how this will end.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple's customers have 2 extra Christmases per year. The first comes in early January.

An iPodjr isn't gonna be that great...

[g_adams27]

This sounds like a good thing, but I heard that they're going to replace the regular buttons with chiclet buttons, and you'll have to attach bulky sidecars to it if you want any kind of expansion capability. Plus the headphones will only communicate with the main unit via a poorly designed IR port.

On the plus side, I heard they'll have some great games for it, like "Jumpman", "Zyll" and "King's Quest" by some company called "Sierra On-Line".

Rumor sites?

[H0NGK0NGPH00EY]

Rumors of a new, smaller, "iPodJr" have been floating around the Rumor Sites for a few weeks (as well a here at Slashdot).

What I find amusing is that the above sentence implies that Slashdot is not a rumor site itself. Heh.

Re:Ogg Vorbis support

[Nexum]

[Ashen-faced shock]

Oh my God, how could Jobs and Apple have overlooked this? Man without Ogg support they are pretty much finished that's for sure, say goodbye to the reign of the iPod folks.

Why didn't you write and tell them that they were gonna miss out on your business? At least we stood a chance of saving them then.

Still, it's their fault I suppose, if they choose to ignore such an industry BEHEMOTH as Ogg Vorbis, what chance could they ever stand.

Seriously though, nobody wants to hear you whine self-righteously about a situation you actively chose and worked at to get yourself in. I'm sure Ogg Vorbis is great, it's not the codec I have a problem with, it's with people who whine about products not supporting it when, to be honest, there isn't the market pressure there.

It's like me going and running a RISC-OS machine, and then *EVERY* time someone releases software for the Mac or PC I chime in going "Pfft, no RISC-OS support? Oh, my, God. Well, looks like Microsoft/Apple/Macromedia/Adobe won't be getting my business then. [Nose-In-Air]"

In summary, Ogg Vorbis may be great, however there is little market pressure for supporting it, so stop whining.

Re:Aiming at the low end

[Ohreally_factor]

Which then gets OCR'd for the $0 folks.

I'll sell you a jpeg of my iPod for cheap.

Re:It's kind of... a bummer

[the Man in Black]

I'm Ellen Feiss, and I have an iPodJr.

I think it's great the kind of things [apple.com] we as a community will take and run with [google.com]. Ellen, the Star Wars kid, Libby Hoeler (oh, don't pretend like it was just me).

Now, let's start a PAC [fec.gov]. Who's with me?

Obligatory link

[michaelmalak]

Banana Jr. 2000 [rwth-aachen.de]

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Yes, the ad goes something like this

[SuperKendall]

"Over Fifty station presets bringing you a total of twenty songs!! Get your iPod Micro today! Using our patented adNausium (TM) tecnology never before has music been repeated like this!"

Re:What's next? Mouse Jr?

[TheRaven64]

They also plan on releasing a on-button keyboard with a big red `do what I mean' button in the middle.

Re:Mini Me?

[calyphus]

The iPod's gonna look tiny in Yao's hand.

Re:We all know how this will end.

[gmhowell]

Are you that whipped, or does she also have to get your permission to get a new pair of shoes? :)

I'm that whipped.